Talk to The Elephant:

King Crimson is a decidedly unwieldy band. Spanning more than 35 years (as of this writing) and at least seven distinct lineups, and complicated by the studio vs. live dichotomy (not to mention no hits to speak of), this is a band that almost refuses to be anthologized. Anything less than a box set doesn't really do the band justice, but anything more than two discs may seem like a grand investment to someone who just wants to get acquainted with them. Since King Crimson completely ceased to exist in the mid- to late '70s and early '80s, that seems a logical dividing point in examining the band's output. And that's exactly how Robert Fripp approached it when he assembled the 21st Century Guide to King Crimson in two volumes.

On the eve of his centenary in 2018, Sony Classical releases the most important collection, Leonard Bernstein’s classic American Columbia recordings, remastered from their original 2- and multi-track analogue tapes. This has allowed for the creation of a natural balance (for example, between the orchestra and solo instruments) that brings the quality of these half-century-old recordings, excellent for their time, up to the standards of today’s audiophiles. In addition, there has been a meticulous restoration of some earlier masterings in which LP surface noise was too rigorously eliminated at the expense of the original brilliance.